Homosexuality In America,” -- or-- How I found out I was “gay” at age 16, 1964.

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MikeW, I wanted to say thanks for sharing all that. And please forgive me if I'm a little incoherent as it's approaching 2 AM (I hadn't intended to stay up this late).

If you're curious, I don't think I realized I was gay until I was 17, though in retrospect it should've been obvious. While I dated a handful of boys it was essentially just friendship and I wasn't attracted to them, nor did one ever break my heart. Boys did aggressively pursue me sexually (even before puberty) and though I was curious enough at times to go along with it a little, I just wasn't interested for its own sake, but then so many girls lied about not being interested that I thought they were telling the truth and therefore that I was normal (though they dated A LOT more and a lot more seriously than I did). For what it's worth, I seem to be demisexual which may have contributed to my not automatically knowing.

I did have an off and on sexual relationship with my best friend though she was promiscuous with many guys (though in retrospect I wonder if her Christian upbringing made her unwilling to accept being gay as she never got that close to a guy, but she did me, and her promiscuity was her trying to become straight). She did turn on 2 girls for supposedly being lesbian which I knew was false, and it hurt my feelings that she thought there was something wrong with what we did in private, but when I mentioned it she got upset and insisted what we did was "just practice." She then ended up convincing me to try losing my virginity to a guy which was somewhat traumatic (though at least the guy was decent enough to stop when I told him to).

We both ran away from home and we were exposed to a lot of gays and lesbians. I felt completely comfortable around them and as far as I can tell she did, too (but then she was often high, unlike me--I did get high a little, but not like her, but then I didn't turn tricks as she did).

When I came back (my best friend didn't) some mean girls tried teasing me by saying I was a lesbian (they were the ones to turn the school against the other 2 girls that my best friend had joined in the tormenting of). I didn't care one way or another if I was. When they tried to alienate my friends (a doomed endeavor due to my being in a special class then rather than part of the school that they terrorized) one girl faked kiss me when they asked if we were girlfriends (I faked kiss back). I still didn't realize I was gay.

But despite epic efforts by the state of Texas to keep me (and all kids) ignorant of homosexuality (and even just sex in general, what little sex ed in school was mostly meant to terrify rather than educate, which would backfire as eventually kids stopped trusting them and ignored the actual dangers right along with the false ones) at least I knew what it was. I'm not even sure how I knew, but I recall seeing the subject brought up when I was like 10-12 on cartoons like the Simpsons and The Critic and I pretty much understood it. (I'm trying to recall when I first heard anyone use "gay" words as a slur and I'm not sure when that was. But I do recall that I accidentally got a boy in trouble when we were 9, IIRC, as I got him to play dress up with me and his parents freaked, so I hadn't picked up just how bad "femininity" which was confused with being gay was by then, and neither did he.)

Btw, I also spent time in a very small rural East Texas town where most of my family lived. About 20-30 kids in my grade sounds about right (the bus I sometimes used in that town took everyone from kindergarten to high school and there was still plenty of room on it, though many didn't take it as the town was that small).

My granny was also a "nature child" and hippie...she has both good and bad memories of the time and I've found her stories (I'm tempted to say saga) of her own coming of age (and leading up to my being born) endlessly fascinating.